Why "Koto" & "Lyra"?

We didn't intend to give our kittens names that would make everyone go, "Huh?" It just worked out that way.

At the shelter, the male kitten was called "Whispers" and the female "Buttons." Or, as my husband put it, "those stupid names."

So, there was no question our new cats would be remained. Unfortunately, when it came to the naming process, I had criteria, my husband had criteria, and each daughter had an opinion. So our little furries' names are the product of much debate and perhaps a bit too much brainstorming.

My parameters were that the kittens had to have real (human) names -- and the names should be short (2 or 3 syllable) and end in a vowel (in my experience, cats respond better to those types of names.)

And, yes I am a bit, um, particular. But that's why I own cats.

My husband wanted the cats' names to work together - or play off each other if you will (and don't most of us prefer "play" to "work"?) and that made things even more complicated. Not that he didn't have plenty of interesting ideas. It's just that they didn't fit within my narrow parameters.

For example, he suggested quite a few classical composers' names -- we all liked Vivaldi, but couldn't think of another name that seemed to go along with it (um, that I liked.)

I thought "Philo" (as in Philo T. Farnsworth) was a perfectly wonderful cat name...and how about Nikola or Tesla (for Nikola Tesla, naturally) for the female? But the fact that Tesla was a man sorta made that a stretch.

We batted around other ideas that included "Boris" & "Natasha" (cute, but weren't B & N evil?) And "Karen" & "Richard."

(Come to think of it, our female kitten is on the thin side...)

Somehow we managed to forget "Donny" & "Marie."

After an hour or so, I started making a list of just about everything mentioned. We also had: Draco, Casio, Mellotron, Chamberlin, Oberheim, Lute, Scarlatti, Staccato, Fugue, Aria, Symphony...you can see my rule about using human names was ignored at this point.

Our youngest wanted to name the kittens "Candy" and "Licorice." "Those can be their middle names!" I said in my cheeriest Mom voice. Because all cats do need full names.

The older daughter was also cooperative. She came up with Melody for the female kitten -- which we liked. While trying to think of a way to make "Lyrics" into a male name, I thought of "Lyra." For the female, naturally.



Not only was "Lyra" a nod to the Golden Compass (and also a reference to my alternate reality as a virtual steampunk - yeah, we won't go into that silliness here)...


...but more significantly Lyra was also a stringed instrument (we're big into music in our household)...


...and the name of a constellation...



...which seemed especially appropriate for this tiny kitten whose big eyes shone out of her dark fur like stars in the night sky.


Still, we went to bed that night without agreeing on a suitable name for our male kitten.

But the next day, through the marvelous power of the internet, my husband had found a companion name, "Koto."

Not only was it also the name of a stringed instrument (as is "Lyra") but evidently "Koto" is also the Japanese name for the constellation Lyra (or at least that's what the internet told us.)

Ah, the symmetry!

Koto (above) & Koto (below)